Dance of the Crystal (4 page)

He disconnected the phone, flicked the remote button to open his truck, and hauled his ass out of the parking lot like the hounds of hell were chasing him.

Because they were.

* * * * *

Not bad for fifty-one, he thought. Most people guessed him to be no more than forty, with his Charles Atlas physique and thick head of hair with touches of gray at the temples. And if he was only five-foot-six, he carried himself with the panache of a much taller man.

Life was good.

Today was especially good. Crystal D’Angelo was bringing him another “find”. Over the five years they’d been associates, she’d consigned many antiques to sell in his shop on trendy Lancaster Avenue in Devon, Pennsylvania. He wasn’t one of the Philadelphia Four Hundred, but he counted many of them as his friends and clients. They knew a Healy was quality.

He frowned at his image then opened a small cupboard over the towel rack and withdrew his manicure scissors. It wouldn’t do to have Crystal distracted by a nose hair. A few judicious snips and he was perfectly groomed again.

The bell over his front door tinkled like wind chimes. Jack straightened his rep tie over his snowy white shirt and went to greet his customer.

One look and he knew the woman was a browser. She gazed around like a camera panning a scene, touched a Sevres bowl here, an arrowback side chair there, and in two minutes walked out without having said a word.

“I’m here,” Crystal sang out a half-hour later as she all but danced through the entrance, her raven black hair flowing out behind her. “Augie’s driving the truck to the alley. Can you give him a hand?”

“So nice to see you, my dear,” Jack said as he took her hand and brought it briefly to his lips. “Your eyes sparkle as much as your crystal today.”

“Thank you.” She air-kissed his cheek and headed toward the back storeroom. “The fund-raiser was great last night. Raised over seventy-five thousand dollars.”

Crystal continued talking about the event as he followed her, but Jack heard only the husky music of her voice. Above calf-high boots, she wore a swirling blue paisley skirt and matching fringed shawl that covered the white turtleneck sweater beneath.

She had the back door unlocked by the time Jack got there, and was walking toward a scruffy white truck of uncertain vintage, with a dent in its rear bumper and patches of rust along one fender. He shook his head. Crystal D’Angelo could well afford to purchase an appropriate van for her business, but seemed unaware that the current battered vehicle was tarnishing her image. The fact that the young man she used for occasional hauling lived in this affluent area added to Jack’s pique. The kid must not still live at home, or his parents would have seen to it that he drove a current model. On the Main Line, he knew, image was everything.

A tall, muscular redhead in gray T-shirt and worn jeans, Augie bounded onto the truck bed, which held two large objects swathed in mover’s quilts. Dismissing the twinge of jealousy at the younger man’s agility, Jack turned his attention to his new consignment and rubbed his hands in anticipation. Because of her trust fund, Crystal only worked, he knew, for the thrill of the hunt. He himself had the same sense of excitement over a new piece.

“This one’s a beauty,” Augie said when he spied the proprietor.

Jack nodded an acknowledgement, although he wondered how much the kid knew about antiquing. He couldn’t be more than twenty-two or -three. Probably got all his buzzwords from Crystal. The kid was unfailingly cheerful every time he brought in another piece of hers. Such a saccharine disposition had to be faked, he mused.

They carefully lifted first one, then the other object off the truck and carried them into the storeroom.

When both sections were unwrapped and fitted one over the other, Jack walked around the cherry corner cupboard in silence, evaluating, assessing.

Finally he said, “All nine panes are original glass. Excellent patina. No nicks or dings. This will fetch a good price.” Close to five figures, he added to himself. He looked at Crystal, whose eyes were aglow at her triumph and whose self-satisfied smile dazzled. God, she was more beautiful than the antique.

“Come.” He extended his hand to her. “Let us toast this newest acquisition.” He’d inaugurated a ritual with her to celebrate the delivery of each new consignment, imbibing in a salubrious glass of extra-dry sherry, using a pair of treasured Lalique glasses he’d vowed never to sell.

“Oh, Jack, I’m sorry. I know we’ve established this lovely tradition, but today I don’t have the time.

Grandma’s waiting for me. The poor thing has no sense of direction, and she needs to go down to Wilmington. You know how imperious Rowena D’Angelo can be when things don’t go her way.”

“She runs your life,” Jack grumbled. “You should be able to come and go as you please without being her lackey. She can afford a cab. Or even a chauffeur.”

Crystal gave him a hug, as if it was an acceptable substitute for more of her time. “She’s my grandmother and I love her.”

He held onto her as long as he dared, until he felt her pull away.

“You ready, doll?” Augie stood at the passenger’s door of the truck, frowning at their embrace. “Your chariot awaits.”

“I’ll talk to you soon,” she told Jack, touching his cheek even as she turned to go.

As Crystal lifted her foot onto the running board, Augie put his huge hands around her waist. Jack was sure the cocky youngster tried to make it look like he was simply getting a good grip on her, but to Jack’s eyes, he was caressing her, damn him. “Up you go.”

Jack gritted his teeth as he watched her smile at the kid, tucking her skirt inside the cab. Then he trudged back into the shop and sat at his cluttered desk, staring at the photograph on the front page of the
Philadelphia Inquirer
and shaking his head.

* * * * *

Crystal looked at Augie with a mixture of exasperation and affection as they flowed with the stop-and-go traffic of a Saturday afternoon in suburbia. The sprinkling of freckles across his nose made him look like a college freshman, but his green eyes held a man’s knowledge of the world. “He’s a colleague, Augie. There’s nothing personal between us.”

“He sure thinks there is.”

“Oh, come on, now.”

Suddenly Augie turned into a fast-food restaurant and drove to the back. “I need some coffee. But first.”

He pulled crosswise into a couple of hash-marked slots, braked hard, and shoved the truck into Park.

“C’mere, doll.” He snapped off his seat belt, leaned across the console and pulled her roughly to him.

“You want some excitement, you come to Augie.”

Before Crystal had time to do little more than blink, his mouth latched onto hers, alternately thrusting his tongue inside and sucking on her lower lip. His right arm tightened around her shoulders. With his left, he groped for her hand and rubbed it against a raging erection. “You turn me on like nobody’s business,” he whispered hoarsely. “Look how much I want you.”

“Augie, please don’t—”

“Come on, doll. You know you like it rough. Hell, that caveman stunt in the picture, it made me hard just looking at it.”

“What are you talking about?”

But Augie just clamped down on her again, opening his mouth like a leech, teeth clicking against hers as he sought even more access to the inside of her mouth.

Struggling against his sudden, misplaced passion, Crystal managed to yank her hand away from his zipper and shove her palm against his chest. It was as ineffectual as trying to move a mountain with a stick. Eyes wide open in shock, she twisted her head from side to side trying to escape, but Augie gripped her skull tightly as he thrust his tongue further inside.

In desperation, she bit down on it.

“Hey! What the fuck—”

Crystal took in a deep, gulping breath. “Augie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You just…” She raised her hand to her heart, felt it thumping wildly. “You frightened me.”

“You bit my tongue!”

“I’m sorry,” she said again, wondering why she was the one apologizing. She inched away from him until her back hit the door, and crossed both arms over her chest as some kind of flimsy protection against any further assault.

He glared at her for a moment, making her feel like a deer in headlights, unable to move yet sensing danger. Then he shifted in his seat, pulled a folded handkerchief out of his jeans pocket and pressed it to his mouth. “Look.” He held it out to her. “Blood.”

“I’m—”
No
. She would not apologize again. She tried to take a deep breath without expanding her chest—she would
not
do anything to further provoke him.

Although what brought on his attack, she had no clue.

Oh. Maybe she did. “What picture? What caveman stunt?”

His mouth turned up in a smirk. “You mean you haven’t seen today’s paper?”

“No. I got—” She was going to say she’d gotten up late today because of the events following last night’s auction, but prudence dictated that she not refer, even obliquely, to her sleeping habits or her bed.

Who knew what would set him off again?

“I had to run some errands before you picked me up. And, by the way, I do thank you for helping me with the corner cupboard. With you and Jack moving my antiques, I know they’ll be handled with kid gloves.”

“I still say he’s too old for you.”

She made a little impatient sound. “I repeat, we’re just colleagues in art. And what picture are you talking about?”

With a smirk, Augie reached under the driver’s seat and pulled out the daily newspaper, folded so the page-one photo held center stage.

Crystal gasped. Her eyes widened to big O’s as she read the caption. Then she smacked the paper on her knee with a force that would have killed a dozen flies. “Take me to Grandma’s. I am so going to give that woman a piece of my mind. She hoodwinked me every step of the way last night.”

Her eyes snapped to him. “And wipe that grin off your face.”

Easing the truck into gear, he saluted her. “Yes, ma’am.”

God, his balls hurt like a son of a bitch. The little tease made him harder than an iron girder in a skyscraper. She kept flirting with those sexy brown eyes and killer smile then pulling back when a guy tried to take her up on it.

He’d been walking around with a boner ever since he’d seen the picture in this morning’s paper—her heart-shaped ass with that red material clinging to it like saran wrap, outlining every lush inch of it, slung over an Arnold-type shoulder with the guy’s hand very near where he wanted his own to be. Augie imagined the feel of her crack as his hand ran up and down the valley between her ass cheeks, driving her wild with each stroke. Especially if she was damn near helpless, like she was in the picture.

One of these days, he was sure, she’d give in to him. No one resisted a Quillan for long. He’d just have to bide his time and keep on her good side. Which reminded him. He’d better apologize.

“Hey, Crys, I’m sorry. I let my imagination run away from me.” He tossed her one of his naughty-little-boy half-smiles that had gotten more debutantes to spread their legs for him than he could count. “You gotta admit, though. That picture’s gonna sell a lot of newspapers.”

There it was again, her cheeks going all red. Why would something like that make a woman blush? Hell, surely she knew she had everything a man would want. Not just an ass made in heaven, but the headlights too. He’d bumped up against her, accidentally on purpose, enough times to know she hadn’t had a boob job.

“I promise. It won’t happen again, Crys. I like helping out, ‘cause I’m learning so much about the business side of antiquing. We got shit like that all around the house, but to me it’s just, you know, things to sit on or to store stuff in. You’re showing me all kinds of little tricks to pick out what’s worth bidding on.”

She turned to him, a small smile chasing away her scowl.
Good. Distract her by talking about things
she likes.

“I do get a kick out of finding a treasure in someone’s attic,” she said.

“But I’ll never know as much about it as you do. You seem to have a knack.”

“You forget, Augie. I grew up with that ‘stuff’ too. We were just interested in different things.”

He let his eyes rove shamelessly over her body, her arms now relaxed in her lap rather than tightly crossed over her chest. Then he looked up at her and grinned. “Yeah. You don’t look much like a football player.”

Damn, there it was again. It was way too easy to make her blush. She punched him ineffectually on his biceps. “Stop that.”

Augie didn’t respond. They had arrived at her grandmother’s house. He swore as he eyed the black Escalade in the sweeping driveway near the front steps. “Your gramma don’t watch out, she’s gonna be the next Mrs. Courtland A. Quillan the Third.”

Crystal laughed. “Don’t be silly. She’s a dozen years older than your dad.”

“Yeah, but don’t forget, she’s rich. So were his three other wives.”

“You’re so cynical for such a young man. They’re probably discussing last night’s Bachelor Auction.”

Then her smile dimmed. Thinking, no doubt, about how she’d exited said auction.

He pulled the truck behind the SUV until he nudged it with his rusty front bumper. It was the most disrespect he could get away with at the moment without jeopardizing his allowance. He shifted gears, turned off the ignition and jumped out to give Crystal a hand with the dismount. He loved this old truck. It was so high off the ground, women almost always waited for an assist from his two big, willing hands.

And usually got a kick out of sliding down his hard young body on the way to the ground.

Crystal was a good deal shorter than he, but she was ready to jump down when he reached her. “Hey, you don’t want to twist your ankle. Here. Let me.” Planting his hands on her waist, he whisked her off her feet and set her down gently on the paving bricks arcing across the driveway. Not a hint of hanky-panky. He hoped she appreciated how good he was being.